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Welcome back to Court Sense ☘️ A newsletter that has never heard of a gap year, actually
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Fifty wins? In a gap year?
The Celtics hit the half-century mark over the weekend, reaching 50 wins for the fifth straight season (and fourth in a row under Joe Mazzulla) with Sunday's win in Charlotte.
It's the first time Boston has won 50-plus in five straight years since the 1980s, when the Celtics cleared that hurdle for nine years in a row behind Larry Bird doing, you know, Larry Bird things.
Not bad for a team that shipped off half of a championship core in the summer, missed its best player for 62 games, and relied on rookies, two-way guys, assorted cast-offs, and whatever Baylor Scheierman is for much of the year.
The Celtics didn't have too much time to celebrate that milestone, heading south to Atlanta to finish off a road back-to-back on Monday night with a comprehensive loss to the red-hot Hawks.
It was an especially rough night for greater Atlanta native Jaylen Brown, who returned from a two-game absence nursing a sore Achilles to slog through one of his worst nights of the season.
Brown's surface-level statline of 29 points, 10 rebounds, and 9 assists doesn't look so bad, but he shot 9 of 29 from the field with six turnovers and racked up much of that scoring when the game was already out of hand.
"This game was on me," Brown said. "I've got to be better. Probably one of my worst performances in a while, and that cost us the game."
The Celtics were a little shorthanded in Boston, with Jayson Tatum and Neemias Queta out. With Nikola Vucevic still sidelined by a finger fracture, that left Luka Garza as only big man left from the Celtics' usual rotation, which meant real minutes for guys like Amari Williams and Charles Bassey.
Credit to Garza, though — the big guy finished with 20 points on 8 of 9 shooting along with nine rebounds. He was the only Celtic on Monday to take multiple shots and shoot better than 50 percent from the field.
Before the loss in Atlanta, the story of the weekend was Tatum, who played some of his best basketball since his return from injury in Friday's win over Atlanta and Sunday's win in Charlotte, both in Brown's absence.
Tatum had a season-high 26 points (plus 12 rebounds and 5 assists) on Friday despite another difficult shooting night. It was hard not to feel good for the guy during his postgame interview at the Garden.
"I know I look rusty," Tatum said. "I know I made some mistakes. But one thing I do know is I'm playing my [expletive] off, I'm trying as hard as I can. I'm a little winded, but 10 and a half months after tearing my Achilles, I'm giving it all I got. And I know each game I'm going to get a little bit better, but I'm trying."
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The Celtics fell to the Hawks in Atlanta on Monday. (AP)
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That rust seemed to disappear on Sunday, when Tatum truly looked back to his very best for the first time, pouring in 32 points on 12 of 23 shooting to help the Celtics roll past the Hornets.
For the first time this season, there were no caveats, no context to consider, no grace to give: Tatum was just excellent in Charlotte, hitting the 30-point mark for the first time this season.
Tatum looked like his old self from the opening tip, splitting the defense and throwing down a dunk that turned out to be a statement of intent.
A tough fallaway jumper followed, then another explosive drive, then a pull-up 3-pointer from way downtown. Tatum either scored or assisted on Boston's first six buckets of the night, and he never really slowed down.
Tatum finished the first half with 20 points to help the Celtics take a 14-point lead over one of the hottest teams in basketball, then added 12 more in the second half to close the show.
(A 28-point night from Payton Pritchard, in the absence of both Brown and Derrick White, was helpful too. I should also note that Pritchard had a game-high 36 points in Friday's win against the Hawks. Pretty good, this Pritchard guy.)
For the first time this season, Tatum shot better than 50 percent from the field, with a 5 of 10 night from beyond the arc helping the cause.
The last couple of performances were enough to earn Tatum Eastern Conference Player of the Week honors after averaging 25.7 points, 9.7 rebounds, and 6.7 assists over his last three games.
If this is Tatum rounding into form, he's picking a good time to do it. There are just seven games to go before the real basketball starts.
Or maybe he just hates the Hornets, seeing as he's scored more points in total (727) and on a per-game basis (26.9) against Charlotte than against any other team. Yeah, maybe it's just that.
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Joe Mazzulla has led the Celtics to another 50-win season. (Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff)
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Joe Mazzulla on potentially winning Coach of the Year: ‘It’s a stupid award. They shouldn’t have it.’
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Don’t ask Joe Mazzulla about the Coach of the Year award. He wants no part of that distinction.
Although the Celtics coach is the leading candidate for the award for leading Boston to a 50-win season without Jayson Tatum for the first 62 games, Mazzulla showed no interest in the personal achievement.
“However, it is a way to make the staff and the players get the appreciation,” he said Monday when asked about the possibility of winning. “I don’t need it. I think it’s a stupid award. They shouldn’t have it. It’s more about the players and it’s more about the work the staff puts in and it’s just that simple. I don’t ever want to be asked or talk about it again. It’s just that dumb. The players play. It’s about them. The staff works their [butts] off. I’m grateful to have them.”
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Other top stories we're watching ...
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Each week, we’ll be asking a piece of Celtics trivia to test your knowledge on the 18-time champions.
Congratulations to Jack Callahan of Beverly, the first person to correctly answer last week's question. As a refresher, we asked you to name which current Celtic was born in Switzerland.
The answer is Nikola Vucevic. The big man is Montenegrin, but his father was playing professionally in Switzerland when Vucevic was born. Vucevic then spent much of his childhood in Belgium before moving to his father's native Montenegro.
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Nikola Vucevic was born in Switzerland in 1990. (Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff)
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Here's this week's question: Prior to Jayson Tatum, who was the last Celtic to be named to the All-NBA first team?
Know the answer? Send us an email at court...@globe.com, and the first person to write in with the correct answer will get a shoutout when the answer is revealed in next week's newsletter. Good luck!
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